Paul Finebaum: Lane Kiffin picked up 'signature' win in game against LSU

On this Sunday’s episode of The Matt Barrie Show, he joined SEC Network host Paul Finebaum to discuss the fallout of Ole Miss‘ massive home victory over LSU.

Looking around at the SEC West and the conference as a whole, there’s really a path for the Rebels — and a slew of other squads — to make a run to the SEC title game, especially with Alabama a little bit down. Now, Ole Miss has already lost to Alabama, but with just one loss and a number of tests awaiting the Tide, that’s not an insurmountable deficit.

In fact, Barrie said on the show that Ole Miss “find themselves very much alive in a wide open SEC West,” to which Paul Finebaum agreed. He was stunned by the drastic improvement on the offensive side of the football for Lane Kiffin’s group.

“It was certainly one of the great reversal of fortunes we’ve ever seen,” he said. “Because a week ago, that team could not have looked any more ineffective. Lane Kiffin dialed up everything correctly.”

Finebaum then issued a strong statement about what the win means for Kiffin’s career in Oxford.

“I mean, I have to say: this was his signature win at Ole Miss, one of the most significant wins he’s had really in his career. And it just so happened, Matt, for it to come 10 years to the day that he was fired at USC. I mean, there’s there’s some bizarre irony there.”

It was a long road for Kiffin to get here, but Saturday’s victory was certainly one of the crowning moments of his head coaching career, and perhaps even his signature win with the Rebels, as Finebaum suggests.

“But you know as good as he was, the defenses were equally as bad on both sides,” he added, shifting the conversation to LSU and how they’ve now dug themselves a hole that they likely cannot climb out of when it comes to the College Football Playoff conversation.

“LSU are out of the playoff, right?” suggested Finebaum. “Brian Kelly was the pick of many to make it to the final four, some to even win the national championship. Now, essentially out of the playoffs by October 1st.”

To wrap it up, Barrie commented that LSU already having two losses is “one of the biggest surprises of this early college football season.”